Lawrence Nwimo, Awka
APC Integrity Group has criticised recent rape allegations leveled at senator-elect for Imo West Senatorial District, Senator Osita Izunaso.
Izunaso who is one of the candidates contesting the seat of the senate president in the 10th Assembly was accused of rape by Chioma Chikere, a 300-level student of Imo State University.
The news of the rape allegation has gone viral on social media after it was published by different online news platforms.
In the reports, Chikere had cried out to Nigerians, lamenting that the senator-elect from Imo West should not be elected as the Senate President of the 10th National Assembly.
It was reported that Chikere bemoaned that a rapist should not be made a Senate President, claiming that Izunaso ripped her of her virginity.
Reacting in a statement issued Sunday in Abuja and signed by its Coordinator, Malam Dawu Mohammed and Secretary, Chisom Nwakanma, the group described the claim as a desperate attempt to truncate Izunaso’s ambition to become the next Senate President.
According to the statement, it is unfortunate that some persons who want Nigerians to believe that they have the country’s interest at heart, would subscribe to the temptation of casting aspersions on the interest of a fellow contestant in their satanic hope that such a move would clear their path to success.
It reads: “The All Progressives Congress Integrity Group is flabbergasted at the new low that some candidates for the office of the President of the 10th Senate of the National Assembly can descend in their desperation to clinch the role.
“It is unfortunate that some persons who want Nigerians to believe that they have the country’s interest at heart, would subscribe to the temptation to cast aspersions on the interest of a fellow contestant in their satanic hope that such a move would clear their path to success.
“The recent campaign of calumny against a chieftain of the party, and a leading contender in the race for the Senate President, Senator Osita Izunaso, by surreptitious sponsors of blackmail is indicative of desperation, evil intention, desire to usurp the interest of the people, and above all, unpatriotic.
“The APC Integrity Group wonders why the said victim of the alleged rape incident, one Chioma Chikere, remains a ghost whose photo and real personality is a phantom.
“The publication which referenced a student of Imo State University IMSU, who cried out to Nigerians, and who is said to have lamented that the Senator-elect should not be allowed to be the Senate President of the 10th National Assembly, is nothing but anti-gregarious, and an illegality which should not be allowed to fester.
“If indeed the respected Distinguished Senator-elect was culpable of any such misdemeanor, why is there no court ruling or verdict in that regard?
“That this merchant of cheap blackmail would wait until now to go to the streets with such frivolous, baseless and corrupt atmosphere of cheap tales, tells of the tainted state of their minds, especially when it is against a man of such public image
who has been in the public domain, walking freely and has by no means been found wanting or declared wanted by any security apparatus.
“We challenge the peddlers of this irrational, shameful and disgraceful tale to bring the face of the accuser indicting the distinguished lawmaker of the allegation, otherwise, the APC Integrity Group would be compelled to engineer a lawsuit against the purveyor of such ‘graveyard story.’
“We call on the supporters of Senator Izunaso in the Senate, APC, and Nigeria at large to disregard the frivolous allegation and support the Distinguished Senator to help bring the new Nigeria anticipated for.”
